I had the good fortune while reading this book to visit the Barnes Collection in Philadelphia. Blake Gopnik (who also wrote a great book on Andy Warhol) does a thorough job of showing the complexity of the man behind these famous museum. He was a prickly and petty person while also extremely compassionate with his workers and friends (particularly marginalized people in society). I had not known that he was lifelong friends with John Dewey, and believed in educating his workforce around all types of topics often facilitated by the workers themselves. He employed women to be leaders at a time when this was largely unheard of. He did have many falling outs with people too. Gopnik shares excerpts from some of his letters he sent -- and they are incredibly mean and nasty (and funny too). He not only collected the great masters (Renoir and Matisse, etc.) but also lesser known American artists (almost what we might consider today to be "Outsider artists"). By reading this book before I visited his museum, I understood better how he arranged his art -- much more by visual shapes and colors and sometimes themes (such as the series of "bathers" and not by artist or time period. He had petty rivalries with other collectors and most notably the Philadelphia Museum of Art (which I also visited on this trip). During this lifetime, he wanted to keep the collection closed to the public and select who could view the art. Now it is finally open to the public and it is definitely worth a visit. I highly recommend reading this book as a companion piece before you visit. A well researched and well-told biography of a true Maverick!

Thank you to Netgalley and Ecco for an ARC and I voluntarily left this review.

I have been a big fan of the Barnes Foundation since I first visited a decade ago. I was instantly drawn to this title. It did not disappoint. I found it fascinating and unsparingly honest in its portrayal of Barnes. I was very impressed with Gopnik’s writing and will likely read more of his books.

Over on my booktube channel (Hannah's Books), I shared this book in my description of exciting books forthcoming in late March. Link to the particular discussion: https://youtu.be/2N50TsBGu7g?si=hjieKosyxY11euyR&t=263

A well written and honest biography of a man who I’m unfortunately not certain we ought to be singing the praises of at the moment.

I’m generally in favor of meeting historical figures in the time and place where they lived in terms of their viewpoints and cultural values, but I struggle with lauding someone for their alleged activism when they were mostly talking out of both sides of their mouth.

While it’s true that Barnes sought to bring positive attention to nonwhite artists and to the cause of racial equality in general, he also reverted to racial slurs and racist ideology when it was convenient for him. He engaged consistently in deeply misogynistic behavior and was unapologetically antisemitic. I have a lot of trouble rah-rahing for a person like this, especially at the current fractious moment in which all of the above groups are being victimized in the country where I live.

I think it’s fine to appreciate that he had a good eye for art and was skilled at formalist criticism, but to act like he’s a hero to some nebulously defined “the people” feels a bit off the mark at best.

To that end, I also struggle to see Barnes as any kind of hero in the context of making art available to all when his attitude feels more about thumbing his nose at formal education than about any kind of real egalitarian principles. He seems to see himself as some sort of crusader for the common folk, but all I see is another insecure white man who seems threatened by the educated and scholarly members of society. Which again, feels like an especially bad look right now.

In the end, I guess I just can’t get on board with this particular choice for “under-appreciated” men of history at this particular time. I am all for acknowledging Barnes’ contributions to art and art criticism and for enjoying a visit to his collection, but I’m sick of seeing men from relatively recent history get the hero treatment for getting it right about a quarter of the time.

During our time in Philadelphia I had heard of the Barnes Museum but we never visited it because of the need to make reservations. And, it was easier to hop on public transportation to get the Philadelphia Museum of Art. But I was interested to learn about Barnes and his collection.

What a character Barnes was! Progressive and anti-racist, a man who treated his employees more than fairly. He hired a gay man to tutor him. He was also vengeful and vindictive, sensitive, and mercurial in his friendships.

Barnes childhood led him to identify with the downtrodden. His own rise and achievements, becoming a doctor and entrepreneur, manufacturing a remarkable drug to prevent blindness in babies, made him imperious and certain that all men and women could improve themselves and their lives.

In 1872, Barnes was born in Fishtown where rowhouses were filled with textile factory workers. The family later relocated to a rough South Philly neighborhood prone to flooding. He gained admission to the exclusive Central High School, an early public high school with a progressive mandate that conferred bachelor’s degrees.

His Methodist mother took him to rural camp meetings where he discovered “the realm of mysticism” that he believed lead him to a love of art. The African Americans’ hymn singing gave him a deep respect for Black culture, although still maintaining stereotyping he never “managed to shed.”

With wealth, Barnes became obsessed with buying cutting-edge art. His philosophy of art was inspired by his friend, John Dewey and his theory of education based on experience.

Barnes was drawn to art by the Ashcan school and Picasso, but particularly liked Renoir and Cezanne. He branched to collect African masks and even farm implements and tools. Although he spoke about the ‘plastic’ in art, he did show a favor for female nudes.

Barnes gave his workers six hour work days and provided educational classes. He believed in bringing art to the ordinary man on the street. When he built the Barnes Institute to house his collection, he wanted to keep out the elite intellectuals and limited who could gain entry.

The biography kept my interest. I admired Barnes and I found him appalling, but always interesting. I appreciated the illustrations of the art work talked about in the book. I thoroughly enjoyed this read.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book through NetGalley.

A really engaging biography, The Maverick's Museum is a portrait of the iconoclastic chemist and businessman whose art collection became the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. It also gives me a clearer and more three-dimensional picture of how modernism made it to America.

Blake Gopnik's latest work The Maverick's Museum: Albert Barnes and His American Dream introduces readers to an amazing man, a scientist-salesman-art collector with dreams big enough to fill Pennsylvania. He established the Barnes Foundation as an institution to first educate, and second to house and maintain his collection - items from all over the world he began to collect in 1902 (he had too much money) and had fortune enough to connect with powers in the art world such as Picasso, Guillaume and Modigliani, among many others.

While some of the art came from those who did traditional work, the art he most sought in his collection travels was not traditional. He would at first head for famous artists, but as he hunted more seriously his heart was firmly set on art that wasn't their usual work - it was work that, within the context of the time they painted, proved to be outside public expectations. Too much this, not enough that, outside all the rules. AC Barnes trusted his own eyes and preferences, and had gathered a revolving cadre of expert companions. Not just any Renoir or Picasso that would do. . .it had to be different and communicate something specific to the viewer, it had to create something new combining with the viewer's experience. Collected art pieces were not limited to paintings. Sculptures, cultural artifacts, anything that caught his eye that qualified according to his own selection process, the more shockable the better. Many of his pieces were nakedness in all its many, too naked for prime time, forms.

This well-researched read provides a fascinating presentation of this eclectic man - brilliant, opinionated, quixotic - hard to pin down unless it was his idea. Even given a project was of his own making, there was no guarantee that he wouldn't turn on it within a sliver of time or a whiff of disappointing execution. The author provides readers with the competing responses Albert Barnes evoked in the people he worked with and for, the artists he supported and used, and the movers and shakers who could help him realize his dreams and the ones who stood in his path. Albert C. Barnes was a fierce man with a message, and wanted his museum to carry that forward past his time with boots on the ground.

The work itself is well-supported with photographs of Barnes' world, where he lived and worked, as well as some of the most famous pieces from his collection. The Barnes Foundation is still up and running, although the decision-makers have allowed themselves to relax some of its founder's strict rules. Meaning more time open and available, and parts of the collection are allowed to go on tour enabling people in other parts of the world to see the significant consequence of Albert Barnes' Great American Dream.

My museum fav? Van Gogh's Postman, and oh, so many others!

*A sincere thank you to Blake Gopnik, Ecco, and NetGalley for an ARC to read and review independently.* #TheMavericksMuseum #NetGalley

I really enjoyed learning about Albert Barnes, it had that element that I was looking for and was engaged with what was happening. It worked well with the art element and was enjoying learning about this man and how he worked with art. Blake Gopnik has a strong writing style and enjoyed the feel and was everything that I wanted.